A fight over hours and pay for off-duty cops guarding the crowds at Saints games this season has led to a rare edit of the sweeping federal order meant to overhaul the New Orleans Police Department.

The City Council unanimously agreed to let SMG, the management company that runs the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, the Smoothie King Center and Champions Square, take over management and payment of police officers when they're working sports, concerts and other events at its venues. The deal had cleared U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who is overseeing the consent decree's implementation, in July.

The council's decision comes less than a week after the Saints' 31-24 preseason win over the Tennessee Titans, where confusion over the hourly pay rate for officers working the game threatened to derail its security details.

Councilman Jared Brossett said he had heard only eight officers showed up. Chief Administrative Officer Andy Kopplin corrected him, but acknowledged that there were fewer officers watching the crowds than normal.

"The outside detail alone is generally over 100 officers," Kopplin said. "They were a few short of that -- it's a good thing it was a preseason game."

Under the new deal, SMG has agreed to continue to pay officers $32 an hour, or about 10 percent more than $29.33-an-hour base pay for secondary details under the consent decree, Kopplin said.

Meanwhile, the list of 200 officers SMG has worked with in the past will be expanded by rotating in 40 more cops each year, City Attorney Sharonda Williams said.

Councilwoman Susan Guidry said she was wary of the exception for SMG when other venues, such as the Fair Grounds Race Track, aren't given the same consideration under the consent decree.

"I think the consent decree is misguided in how they're handling these private details," she said.

Critics of the way the city has handled management of off-duty details treated the SMG deal as a toehold for pushing for even more changes to the NOPD's federal reform mandate.

"If the consent decree can be modified for this, then the consent decree can be modified for...other special circumstances," said Fraternal Order of Police attorney Donovan Liviccari. "We would encourage this council not to accept 'It's in the consent decree' as an excuse for not making changes to improve this system in the future."

Eric Hessler, an attorney with the Police Association of New Orleans, bristled over a clause in the deal that appears to require all officers wanting to work for SMG to first work another unrelated detail by Aug. 1, 2015 in order to remain on the list for work at the Superdome. He said some cops had worked no details other than Saints games in their careers, but now would have to find work elsewhere to keep what they had.

Williams said the added detail requirement would provide officers new to the rotation with experience needed to work big crowds at sports events and concerts -- even though she acknowledged that guarding a church on a Sunday morning would satisfy the stipulation.